Could AEW pull off a 70,000 attendance show?

[holyshida]

Apr 5, 2022 18:34:50 GMT -5 @flaminghalo said:

Apr 5, 2022 18:30:21 GMT -5 holyshida said:

AEWs first UK show could

No it couldn't. I'd aim for 10k (New Japan did 6k, WWE has obviously done more) but you aren't going to get US fans flying over and outside the wrestling nerd bubble (do you like my membership pin?), it has no mainstream penetration.

you underestimate how hot aew is in the UK. Thats a market of 50+ million and regularly gets 200k for a Dynamite that's taped 2 days later, that's not even including hardcore UK wrestling fans that have Fitetv. Also other European countries will travel as they're close by.

[Jindrak Mark]

Apr 5, 2022 18:30:21 GMT -5 holyshida said:

AEWs first UK show could

Based on what?

Like I'm sure they could do a big arena in the UK and get around 20,000 which would be a massive success but I think you're downplaying how ridiculously big of an attendance 70,000 would be. That's only slightly more than the absolute mega boxing fights at Wembley stadium get. And think of how hot UFC was a few years ago. Even their record attendance ever is only around 55,000 for Rousey/Holm.

[holyshida]

Apr 5, 2022 18:40:37 GMT -5 Jindrak Mark said:

Apr 5, 2022 18:30:21 GMT -5 holyshida said:

AEWs first UK show could

Based on what?

Like I'm sure they could do a big arena in the UK and get around 20,000 which would be a massive success but I think you're downplaying how ridiculously big of an attendance 70,000 would be. That's only slightly more than the absolute mega boxing fights at Wembley stadium get. And think of how hot UFC was a few years ago. Even their record attendance ever is only around 55,000 for Rousey/Holm.

AEWs first show in the UK I wouldn't rule out a big stadium show selling out, just the hype for AEW in the UK for the first time is historic so people will want to be a part of it

[Deleted]

A heavily promoted show at Chicago’s Soldier Field with significant promotion and NJPW involvement (Okada and Tanahashi on the card, probably) could totally do it.

Mania draws that many because it’s a destination event that wrestling fans from all over the world come to see. If AEW was able to present a “once in a lifetime” card with enough lead time that people from out of town can plan a trip to come in and see, I think they could do it.

[Deleted]

Apr 5, 2022 18:40:10 GMT -5 holyshida said:

Apr 5, 2022 18:34:50 GMT -5 @flaminghalo said:

No it couldn't. I'd aim for 10k (New Japan did 6k, WWE has obviously done more) but you aren't going to get US fans flying over and outside the wrestling nerd bubble (do you like my membership pin?), it has no mainstream penetration.

you underestimate how hot aew is in the UK. Thats a market of 50+ million and regularly gets 200k for a Dynamite that's taped 2 days later, that's not even including hardcore UK wrestling fans that have Fitetv. Also other European countries will travel as they're close by.

I'm fully aware of the level of popularity AEW has here. 70k is not on the table.

[Jindrak Mark]

Apr 5, 2022 18:42:46 GMT -5 holyshida said:

Apr 5, 2022 18:40:37 GMT -5 Jindrak Mark said:

Based on what?

Like I'm sure they could do a big arena in the UK and get around 20,000 which would be a massive success but I think you're downplaying how ridiculously big of an attendance 70,000 would be. That's only slightly more than the absolute mega boxing fights at Wembley stadium get. And think of how hot UFC was a few years ago. Even their record attendance ever is only around 55,000 for Rousey/Holm.

AEWs first show in the UK I wouldn't rule out a big stadium show selling out, just the hype for AEW in the UK for the first time is historic so people will want to be a part of it

If you mean a big 20-30,000 seat stadium then I agree but if you're talking about anything close to 70,000 which the original question was then you're going to be disappointed.

[Cyno]

Eventually? Maybe 30-40k like a baseball stadium-sized venue. But even Wrestlemanias are padded with thousands of comped tickets lately. I can't see AEW doing anything that big with a legit sold out gate anytime soon.

[polarbearpete]

Apr 5, 2022 18:14:59 GMT -5 Jindrak Mark said:

I think some people are over-estimating how hot wrestling is, both today and just generally throughout history.

70,000 is more than Hogan/Rock in Toronto, Hogan/Goldberg at the Georgia Dome, every attitude era show, every WCW/NWA show, every Wrestle Kingdom or Japanese wrestling show ever, every show in Mexican wrestling history, more than each individual night of Wrestlemania this year and not far off Hogan/Andre (78,000 is supposedly the legit number).

The only non-Wrestlemania shows to ever draw 70,000 or more are Summerslam in Wembley Stadium and Collision in Korea. The latter of which didn't even sell tickets. The government basically forced people to attend.

WWE doing a major overseas PPV could probably do it. Super Showdown in Australia a couple years ago did 65,000 and one in the UK could probably top that. Other than that the absolute peak for a non-Wrestlemania show right now is probably 40-50,000. Summerslam last year with one of the biggest main events you could possibly do in wrestling today did a little over 50,000. It took a hit since the pandemic but NJPW was really hot throughout the Tanahashi/Okada eras and even those Wrestle Kingdoms usually "only" had around 25-40,000.

The G1 supercard in 2019 didn't sell out MSG. If they did a much bigger version of that though, a huge AEW/NJPW/ROH/Impact supercard in a stadium, with Punk/Danielson/Jericho/Sting/Moxley/Omega/Bucks/Okada/Naito/Tanahashi/White/Ibushi/Ospreay all on the card in big matches and hyped it to the moon and back for 6-12 months I could see them selling 30,000, maybe even close to 40,000 tickets.

I think AEW alone coulddo 35-40K right now with the right build/card. They do have probably around 2 million unique domestic viewers of Dynamite each week, and have sold out smaller buildings before where demand made it seem like they would sell more if available.

["Evil Brood" Jackson Vanik]

I do think of they do it right, the first attempt could do very well. Part of what sells events now isn't really the card but the feeling that you're going to something big and/or historic. Part of why the LA sold out so quickly was it started to feel like something big and if you're a fan there, you need to be there. And they've booked unique venues before so if they find somewhere fun and different, it could do very well. 70K is a ways away but something more than Grand Slam isn't.

[oxbaker]

Apr 5, 2022 18:37:57 GMT -5 Xxcjb01xX [PIECE OF: SH-] said:

Apr 5, 2022 18:30:46 GMT -5 stoptheclocks said:

65k each night, as per WrestleTix.

Still wasn't 77K like they claimed

Even still my point stands, I think AEW could fill a Jacksonville stadium pretty decently, could probably get a 30K gate with the right card or even a big crossover event with New Japan, but they're still very new, and people are still like... discovering them, so not just yet, probably not for awhile, but they can get a big crowd already which is promising.

Actually, from my understanding wrestletix accounts for ticket sales on the open market.

It doesn’t count the 12K+ seats in luxury boxes at that stadium (most of any still I think), which aren’t sold — people who ‘own’ those boxes get tickets to every event including Cowboys games, concerts, boxing, WM, whatever else might take place there. That’s what they’re paying huge bucks for.

Now I’m sure some of those people weren’t interested and rented them out to people who were, some of those seats weren’t used (it’s 32 seats per box from what I’ve read, maybe a few of them are oversized on top of that) but they are usually counted in attendance as technically those seats are ‘sold’ due to the people paying the lux box fees to ‘own’ their box.

So actually WWE’s number with those added in to what wrestletix reported comes out about right.

As far as AEW, I don’t think they’re there yet. To even contemplate it they’d have to make the upper deck seats very cheap (maybe $20-30). And they’d probably taper off some seating apart from what would be behind the stage — I think the Jags even do that. They haven’t averaged more than 60K since 2016 for Jags games.

To get into stadium show size, you need casuals and not just ‘hardcore wrestling fans’ I think. There has to be some mass-market appeal. I don’t think AEW is there yet.

You also have to account for Jacksonville not exactly being a destination city. If they do it in the summer it’s hot and humid as hell and of course you’re not going to be able to do it when NFL is in season.

Can AEW get there? Sure, given time and growth. But I don’t think they’ve reached that yet. It would be a bad gamble because they could draw, say, 35K and it would look like a disaster instead of a big deal (which it actually would be). Better to turn people away from your big shows in basketball-sized arena than have an NFL stadium half empty.

[holyshida]

Apr 5, 2022 18:45:12 GMT -5 Jindrak Mark said:

Apr 5, 2022 18:42:46 GMT -5 holyshida said:

AEWs first show in the UK I wouldn't rule out a big stadium show selling out, just the hype for AEW in the UK for the first time is historic so people will want to be a part of it

If you mean a big 20-30,000 seat stadium then I agree but if you're talking about anything close to 70,000 which the original question was then you're going to be disappointed.

Well you could be right but what I'll say is that Taped Dynamites get 200k viewers and that's not including hardcore fans that will watch live or stream. Dynamite on Wed is consistently the no1 trending live in the UK so it's not unreasonable to think that there's at leadt 500k AEW fans in the UK and none of those fans have been to an AEW show yet so they'll want to be part of this first time event. Not to mention fans travelling from France, Germany, Italy etc

[Jindrak Mark]

Apr 5, 2022 18:43:00 GMT -5 @mattyphatty said:

A heavily promoted show at Chicago’s Soldier Field with significant promotion and NJPW involvement (Okada and Tanahashi on the card, probably) could totally do it.

Mania draws that many because it’s a destination event that wrestling fans from all over the world come to see. If AEW was able to present a “once in a lifetime” card with enough lead time that people from out of town can plan a trip to come in and see, I think they could do it.

70,000 is top 10 attendance in pro wrestling history territory.

Are you seriously saying AEW is hotter than UFC/WCW/NJPW/AJPW/AAA/CMLL and all the old territories ever were at their peaks? Because none of them have ever sold 70,000 tickets.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_professional_wrestling_attendance_records

Again, I think some people are not realizing how ridiculous that number is. Even 50,000 is probably aiming way too high.

[Cyno]

Either way, you can't just do a wrestling show with a venue that big. You need incentive for people to travel from across the country, if not the world. It has to be a great tourism city, too.

Like there's no way Jacksonville will ever do a big show like that because who the f*** wants to vacation in Jacksonville? It's convenient as AEW's home base, but it's a lousy destination city.

[Oh Cry Me a Screwball]

Apr 5, 2022 18:52:47 GMT -5 "Evil Brood" Jackson Vanik said:

I do think of they do it right, the first attempt could do very well. Part of what sells events now isn't really the card but the feeling that you're going to something big and/or historic. Part of why the LA sold out so quickly was it started to feel like something big and if you're a fan there, you need to be there. And they've booked unique venues before so if they find somewhere fun and different, it could do very well. 70K is a ways away but something more than Grand Slam isn't.

Yeah, AEW could very well run a stadium show in a 70K seater and make it look really good. It may not sell 70K, but you block off enough seats for production and hammer home it's AEW's first ever big stadium show with possible cross promotion featuring the likes of Okada, they could get in the realm of 40K and it would look awesome on TV, and if there is demand to fill the stadium further, just release those seats and adapt the production set-up.

It's what WWE did for Summerslam last year. Only 3/4 of that stadium was used at all for the show, but you couldn't tell with they way they filmed it.

[rnrk supports BLM]

With the right celebrities and nostalgia acts, maybe. Even then, they'll probably still need several more years of building up brand recognition first.

[Deleted]

Apr 5, 2022 18:57:28 GMT -5 Jindrak Mark said:

Apr 5, 2022 18:43:00 GMT -5 @mattyphatty said:

A heavily promoted show at Chicago’s Soldier Field with significant promotion and NJPW involvement (Okada and Tanahashi on the card, probably) could totally do it.

Mania draws that many because it’s a destination event that wrestling fans from all over the world come to see. If AEW was able to present a “once in a lifetime” card with enough lead time that people from out of town can plan a trip to come in and see, I think they could do it.

70,000 is top 10 attendance in pro wrestling history territory.

Are you seriously saying AEW is hotter than UFC/WCW/NJPW/AJPW/AAA/CMLL and all the old territories ever were at their peaks? Because none of them have ever sold 70,000 tickets.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_professional_wrestling_attendance_records

Again, I think some people are not realizing how ridiculous that number is. Even 50,000 is probably aiming way too high.

I have to give the caveat that Soldier would need to be able to hold 70k as set up for wrestling. I’m not sure it does. But yeah, the question is “could” AEW hit 70k. Not would it. Not is it likely.

And I think that a heavily promoted super card presented as a once in a lifetime event, and featuring talent you don’t normally see on the USA, along with AEW’s currently loaded roster could do it in Chicago (or possibly New York or Philly) if it’s treated like a destination event for pro wrestling fans.

[Mozenrath]

Ever? Sure.

Right now? Probably not? It sort of depends also on if they're doing it for the sake of doing it or if they were making a good business decision.

If they wanted to to just sell as many tickets as possible without regard for if it was smart, it could probably be done, but it'd mean selling tickets at a loss, probably, and that would be actual money mark behavior, not most of what people accuse Khan of doing.

[Some Baritone guy IS REDEEMED!]

Not right now, and I don't think they need to even try just yet. They're growing at a steady pace, consistently drawing 10,000-15,000 with their bigger shows, and even drawing 20,000+ on bigger events. This from about 6,000 not long ago. They're still a young company yet, there's no rush. It's a marathon not a sprint.

[Jindrak Mark]

Apr 5, 2022 19:02:04 GMT -5 rnrk supports BLM said:

With the right celebrities and nostaliga acts, maybe. Even then, they'll probably still need several more years of building up brand recognition first.

As others have said, Soldier Field in Chicago is probably the best bet to get as high a number as possible due to the AEW/Punk history with the city but I don't think they can really wait several years to do it if they want to maximize the number.

It's unlikely they'll ever get like Rock/Brock/Cena even for a one-off. The likes of Punk/Danielson/Omega/Jericho/Tanahashi/Okada/Naito/Ibushi would need to be among the major selling points and with their age and/or wear and tear on their bodies it would probably need to be relatively soon. Who knows what condition they'll be in in 5 years. I think they should target 2023 or 2024 if they're serious about attempting it.

[rnrk supports BLM]

Apr 5, 2022 19:28:39 GMT -5 Jindrak Mark said:

Punk/Danielson/Omega/Jericho/Tanahashi/Okada/Naito/Ibushi

That's the thing; unless AEW or wrestling in general suddenly explodes in popularity again, none of those guys are going to be "headlining a 70k+ attendance supershow" draws unless they're opposite an even bigger draw.

They're going to need a top name from the last boom period or a major current mainstream celebrity. Preferably a few from both categories.

I can think of one WWE Hall of Famer with some mainstream recognition who's already made bank off the Khans before who could pull it off, even right now, but discussing him on here runs afoul of forum rules.